The College of Media has received a curriculum development seed grant from the Illinois Informatics Institute to support a new project focusing on integrating digital media education as a foundation throughout the college’s academic programs.

The grant is part of the Institute’s iCUBED project funded by the National Science Foundation. iCUBED aims to cultivate computational and information technology expertise across all baccalaureate education at the University of Illinois.

With the assistance of the grant, the college launched a "Digital Media First" curriculum development project that targets the introductory undergraduate experiences in the Departments of Journalism, Media and Cinema Studies, and Advertising. The project will complement the other digital media courses already offered at the upper-division level, such as "Multimedia Journalism," "New Media, Culture, and Society," and "Advertising and Informatics."

The project will be led by Christian Sandvig, associate professor of media and cinema studies. The project team consists of Matt Crain, doctoral candidate in communications; Brittany Duff, assistant professor of advertising; Brant Houston, Knight Chair in Enterprise Reporting; Lisa Nakamura, professor of media and cinema studies; Michelle Nelson, professor of advertising, and Jan Slater, interim dean and professor of advertising.